"O man of the sea, come, listen to me,
For Alice, my wife, the plague of my life,
Has sent me to beg a boon of thee,"
she said it rather rapidly. At the first repetition she said it still
more rapidly; the next time she came to the jingle she said it so fast
and so low that it was unintelligible; and the next recurrence was too
much for her. With a blush and a hesitating smile she said, "And he
said that same thing, you know!" Of course everybody laughed, and of
course the thread of interest and illusion was hopelessly broken for
everybody.
Now, any one who chanced to hear Miss Shedlock tell that same story
will remember that the absurd rhyme gave great opportunity for
expression, in its very repetition; each time that the fisherman came
to the water's edge his chagrin and unwillingness was greater, and his
summons to the magic fish mirrored his feeling. The jingle IS foolish;
that is a part of the charm. But if the person who tells it FEELS
foolish, there is no charm at all! It is the same principle which
applies to any address to any assemblage: if the speaker has the air of
finding what he has to say absurd or unworthy of effort, the audience
naturally tends to follow his lead, and find it not worth listening to.
Let me urge, then, take your story seriously.
Next, "take your time." This suggestion needs explaining, perhaps. It
does not mean license to dawdle. Nothing is much more annoying in a
speaker than too great deliberateness, or than hesitation of speech.
But it means a quiet realization of the fact that the floor is yours,
everybody wants to hear you, there is time enough for every point and
shade of meaning and no one will think the story too long. This mental
attitude must underlie proper control of speed. Never hurry. A
business-like leisure is the true attitude of the storyteller.
And the result is best attained by concentrating one's attention on the
episodes of the story. Pass lightly, and comparatively swiftly, over
the portions between actual episodes, but take all the time you need
for the elaboration of those. And above all, do not FEEL hurried.
The next suggestion is eminently plain and practical, if not an all too
obvious one. It is this: if all your preparation and confidence fails
you at the crucial moment, and memory plays the part of traitor in some
particular, if, in short, you blunder on a detail of the story, NEVER
ADMIT IT. If it was an unimportant detail which you misstated, pass
right on, accepting whatever you said, and continuing with it; if you
have been so unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a necessary link
in the chain, put it in, later, as skillfully as you can, and with as
deceptive an appearance of its being in the intended order; but never
take the children behind the scenes, and let them hear the creaking of
your mental machinery. You must be infallible. You must be in the
secret of the mystery, and admit your audience on somewhat unequal
terms; they should have no creeping doubts as to your complete
initiation into the secrets of the happenings you relate.
Plainly, there can be lapses of memory so complete, so all-embracing,
that frank failure is the only outcome, but these are so few as not to
need consideration, when dealing with so simple material as that of
children's stories. There are times, too, before an adult audience,
when a speaker can afford to let his hearers be amused with him over a
chance mistake. But with children it is most unwise to break the spell
of the entertainment in that way. Consider, in the matter of a detail
of action or description, how absolutely unimportant the mere accuracy
is, compared with the effect of smoothness and the enjoyment of the
hearers. They will not remember the detail, for good or evil, half so
long as they will remember the fact that you did not know it. So, for
their sakes, as well as for the success of your story, cover your slips
of memory, and let them be as if they were not.
And now I come to two points in method which have to do especially with
humorous stories. The first is the power of initiating the
appreciation of the joke. Every natural humorist does this by instinct
and the value of the power to story-teller can hardly be overestimated.
To initiate appreciation does not mean that one necessarily gives way
to mirth, though even that is sometimes natural and effective; one
merely feels the approach of the humorous climax, and subtly suggests
to the hearers that it will soon be "time to laugh." The suggestion
usually comes in the form of facial expression, and in the tone. And
children are so much simpler, and so much more accustomed to following
another's lead than their elders, that the expression can be much more
outright and unguarded than would be permissible with a mature audience.
Children like to feel the joke coming, in this way; they love the
anticipation of a laugh, and they will begin to dimple, often, at your
first unconscious suggestion of humor. If it is lacking, they are
sometimes afraid to follow their own instincts. Especially when you are
facing an audience of grown people and children together, you will find
that the latter are very hesitant about initiating their own expression
of humor. It is more difficult to make them forget their surroundings
then, and more desirable to give them a happy lead. Often at the
funniest point you will see some small listener in an agony of endeavor
to cloak the mirth which he--poor mite--fears to be indecorous. Let
him see that it is "the thing" to laugh, and that everybody is going to.
Having so stimulated the appreciation of the humorous climax, it is
important to give your hearers time for the full savor of the jest to
permeate their consciousness. It is really robbing an audience of its
rights, to pass so quickly from one point to another that the mind must
lose a new one if it lingers to take in the old. Every vital point in
a tale must be given a certain amount of time: by an anticipatory
pause, by some form of vocal or repetitive emphasis, and by actual
time. But even more than other tales does the funny story demand this.
It cannot be funny without it.
Every one who is familiar with the theatre must have noticed how
careful all comedians are to give this pause for appreciation and
laughter. Often the opportunity is crudely given, or too liberally
offered; and that offends. But in a reasonable degree the practice is
undoubtedly necessary to any form of humorous expression.
A remarkably good example of the type of humorous story to which these
principles of method apply, is the story of "Epaminondas." It will be
plain to any reader that all the several funny crises are of the
perfectly unmistakable sort children like, and that, moreover, these
funny spots are not only easy to see; they are easy to foresee. The
teller can hardly help sharing the joke in advance, and the tale is an
excellent one with which to practice for power in the points mentioned.
Epaminondas is a valuable little rascal from other points of view, and
I mean to return to him, to point a moral. But just here I want space
for a word or two about the matter of variety of subject and style in
school stories.
There are two wholly different kinds of story which are equally
necessary for children, I believe, and which ought to be given in about
the proportion of one to three, in favor of the second kind; I make the
ratio uneven because the first kind is more dominating in its effect.
The first kind is represented by such stories as the "Pig Brother,"
which has now grown so familiar to teachers that it will serve for
illustration without repetition here. It is the type of story which
specifically teaches a certain ethical or conduct lesson, in the form
of a fable or an allegory,--it passes on to the child the conclusions
as to conduct and character, to which the race has, in general,
attained through centuries of experience and moralizing. The story
becomes a part of the outfit of received ideas on manners and morals
which is an inescapable and necessary possession of the heir of
civilization.
Children do not object to these stories in the least, if the stories
are good ones. They accept them with the relish which nature seems to
maintain for all truly nourishing material. And the little tales are
one of the media through which we elders may transmit some very slight
share of the benefit received by us, in turn, from actual or
transmitted experience.
The second kind has no preconceived moral to offer, makes no attempt to
affect judgment or to pass on a standard. It simply presents a picture
of life, usually in fable or poetic image, and says to the hearer,
"These things are." The hearer, then, consciously or otherwise, passes
judgment on the facts. His mind says, "These things are good;" or,
"This was good, and that, bad;" or, "This thing is desirable," or the
contrary.
The story of "The Little Jackal and the Alligator" is a good
illustration of this type. It is a character-story. In the naive form
of a folk tale, it doubtless embodies the observations of a seeing eye,
in a country and time when the little jackal and the great alligator
were even more vivid images of certain human characters than they now
are. Again and again, surely, the author or authors of the tales must
have seen the weak, small, clever being triumph over the bulky,
well-accoutred, stupid adversary. Again and again they had laughed at
the discomfiture of the latter, perhaps rejoicing in it the more
because it removed fear from their own houses. And probably never had
they concerned themselves particularly with the basic ethics of the
struggle. It was simply one of the things they saw. It was life. So
they made a picture of it.
The folk tale so made, and of such character, comes to the child
somewhat as an unprejudiced newspaper account of to-day's happenings
comes to us. It pleads no cause, except through its contents; it
exercises no intentioned influence on our moral judgment; it is there,
as life is there, to be seen and judged. And only through such seeing
and judging can the individual perception attain to anything of power
or originality. Just as a certain amount of received ideas is
necessary to sane development, so is a definite opportunity for
first-hand judgments essential to power.
In this epoch of well-trained minds we run some risk of an inundation
of accepted ethics. The mind which can make independent judgments, can
look at new facts with fresh vision, and reach conclusions with
simplicity, is the perennial power in the world. And this is the mind
we are not noticeably successful in developing, in our system of
schooling. Let us at least have its needs before our consciousness, in
our attempts to supplement the regular studies of school by such
side-activities as story-telling. Let us give the children a fair
proportion of stories which stimulate independent moral and practical
decisions.
And now for a brief return to our little black friend. "Epaminondas"
belongs to a very large, very ancient type of funny story: the tale in
which the jest depends wholly on an abnormal degree of stupidity on the
part of the hero. Every race which produces stories seems to have
found this theme a natural outlet for its childlike laughter. The
stupidity of Lazy Jack, of Big Claus, of the Good Man, of Clever Alice,
all have their counterparts in the folly of the small Epaminondas.
Evidently, such stories have served a purpose in the education of the
race. While the exaggeration of familiar attributes easily awakens
mirth in a simple mind, it does more: it teaches practical lessons of
wisdom and discretion. And possibly the lesson was the original cause
of the story.
Not long ago, I happened upon an instance of the teaching power of
these nonsense tales, so amusing and convincing that I cannot forbear
to share it. A primary teacher who heard me tell "Epaminondas" one
evening, told it to her pupils the next morning, with great effect. A
young teacher who was observing in the room at the time told me what
befell. She said the children laughed very heartily over the story, and
evidently liked it much. About an hour later, one of them was sent to
the board to do a little problem. It happened that the child made an
excessively foolish mistake, and did not notice it. As he glanced at
the teacher for the familiar smile of encouragement, she simply raised
her hands, and ejaculated "'For the law's sake!'"
It was sufficient. The child took the cue instantly. He looked
hastily at his work, broke into an irrepressible giggle, rubbed the
figures out, without a word, and began again. And the whole class
entered into the joke with the gusto of fellow-fools, for once wise.
It is safe to assume that the child in question will make fewer
needless mistakes for a long time because of the wholesome reminder of
his likeness with one who "ain't got the sense he was born with." And
what occurred so visibly in his case goes on quietly in the hidden
recesses of the mind in many cases. One "Epaminondas" is worth three
lectures.
I wish there were more of such funny little tales in the world's
literature, all ready, as this one is, for telling to the youngest of
our listeners. But masterpieces are few in any line, and stories for
telling are no exception; it took generations, probably, to make this
one. The demand for new sources of supply comes steadily from teachers
and mothers, and is the more insistent because so often met by the
disappointing recommendations of books which prove to be for reading
only, rather than for telling. It would be a delight to print a list
of fifty, twenty-five, even ten books which would be found full of
stories to tell without much adapting. But I am grateful to have found
even fewer than the ten, to which I am sure the teacher can turn with
real profit. The following names are, of course, additional to the
list contained in "How to Tell Stories to Children."
ALL ABOUT JOHNNIE JONES. By Carolyn Verhoeff. Milton Bradley Co.,
Springfield, Mass. Valuable for kindergartners as a supply of
realistic stories with practical lessons in simplest form.
OLD DECCAN DAYS. By Mary Frere. Joseph McDonough, Albany, New York.
A splendid collection of Hindu folk tales, adaptable for all ages.
THE SILVER CROWN. By Laura E. Richards. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
Poetic fables with beautiful suggestions of ethical truths.
THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BY Eva March Tappan. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
Boston, New York, and Chicago. A classified collection, in ten
volumes, of fairy, folk tales, fables, realistic, historical, and
poetical stories.
FOR THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BY Carolyn Bailey and Clara Lewis. Milton
Bradley Co., Springfield. A general collection of popular stories, well
told.
THE SONS OF CORMAC. By Aldis Dunbar. Longmans, Green & Co., London.
Rather mature but very fine Irish stories.
For the benefit of suggestion to teachers in schools where
story-telling is newly or not yet introduced in systematic form, I am
glad to append the following list of stories which have been found, on
several years' trial, to be especially tellable and likable, in certain
grades of the Providence schools, in Rhode Island. The list is not
mine, although it embodies some of my suggestions. I offer it merely
as a practical result of the effort to equalize and extend the
story-hour throughout the schools. Its makers would be the last to
claim ideal merit for it, and they are constantly improving and
developing it. I am indebted for the privilege of using it to the
primary teachers of Providence, and to their supervisor, Miss Ella L.
Sweeney.